I’m curious to hear your opinions about publishing articles and presenting papers at conferences. Last week, as my Inbox was inundated with emails about upcoming conference deadlines and calls for papers, I started to panic and think thoughts like: “Ok, maybe I can write an abstract in anticipation of the paper I’m going to write for this seminar–even though I have no idea what it’s going to be about–and submit that by the deadline next week.” A part of this anxiety may stem from the fact that I went to a lot of conferences as an undergrad. In fact, my junior and senior years, I think I submitted abstracts and proposals to almost every conference I heard about. In short, I’d set an unrealistic expectation for myself (motivated in part by my tendency to overachieve, in part by the current job market).
Today, I read an article by Cary Nelson (at Urbana-Champaign) called “No Wine Before Its Time.” Are you familiar with it? It was such a relief to hear his opinion about “preprofessionalization.” He says don’t be afraid to publish early and present at conferences, as long as you have something intelligent to say. On the other hand, he offers an idea of what’s realistic: two to three conference presentations at specialized conferences in your field. That’s it. And the best thing to publish is a chapter of your dissertation–not half-baked seminar papers. He says, “Diverting yourself from your dissertation by revising seminar papers is not preprofessionalization; it is misguided professionalization…Much the same can be said of the frenetic effort to add more and more conference presentations to your vita” (159-60).
A week or so ago, as I was attempting to plan the next several years, I felt a little at sea. I wasn’t sure what my goal should be in terms of publications, etc. Now I think I do. This year, I’m hoping both to submit something from my undergrad thesis for publication and to prepare a paper to present at a notable conference (like Kalamazoo–the “big one” for medievalists) next year. My third and fourth years, I’d like to be presenting papers that are coming from my dissertation. My fourth or fifth year, I’ll aim to submit a chapter-article for publication. I really want my dissertation to be my focus so that I can have something that’s ready to be made into a book when I go on the job market. And I don’t want to feel overwhelmed by conferences–like I did last week.
That’s the plan for now. What are your plans for/ thoughts about preprofessionalizing?
karobison
DLewis
Jeremy
bdbascom
I’ve gone in stages. I was pretty gung-ho this last year: I presented at the national conference for my field (albeit on a grad-student panel) and was encouraged by a professor to fine-tune a seminar paper for publication. Over the last couple of months, though, I’ve noticed a “deflating” of my confidence: not that I’m in despair but more realistic about all that I need to know and should know before trying to speak intelligently in my field.
I think part of my problem was that as an undergrad trying to “show off” for grad schools, while still woefully unprepared to be well-versed in any topic, I felt pressured to come up with something “cool” and sexy, whether or not it was actually a substantive insight to any set of broader knowledge. This skewed my perception of research and publishing away from a process of filtering, synthesizing, and adding to a wide bredth of knowledge to a more Romantic, visceral approach that emphasized instinct and bravado, trying to blaze a trail forward without careful consideration for what’s already been said. Bad, Dallin, bad.
This means I’ve reined in my expectations. I have some research topics I want to look into, but I’m not going to be desperate to publish until about year 4 or 5. People generally say 1 conference per year is sufficient, so I’ll probably shoot for that. In some ways, these “lowered” expectations are probably too low for many of you–I think your undergrad work was a lot more developed than mine. But I don’t want to get caught fiddling with seminar papers while my dissertation burns. Plus, I still have so much reading in my area to do.
The problem I see with publishing and presenting this early is that we really (hopefully?) don’t know what we want our career to look like. I mean, by presenting at that Mark Twain conference I thought that I should go into Twain studies of some sort–like, have a chapter cover his oeuvre. Well, that’s WAY too backwards of a way for determining one’s interests. So, I think it is too early to even try to publish or present (unless, of course, you are interested in exploring the prospects of attending a different institution).
But this is coming from someone who sent off an essay last December that will be published in November. Totally unexpected and unjustifiable. In fact, I’m worried about the essay haunting me (don’t ask me why, but I imagine someone digging it up years down the road and realizing that I’m a hack writer).
One of my professors (my adviser actually) is a big 18C scholar but a really modest guy too. We were talking in class about “The Dunciad,” and before commenting on a book he had written on (and now disagreed with), he laughed sheepishly: “Here’s a word of advice: don’t publish your first book at 25.”
Let that be a lesson to all of us.
Hey, since this experience recently happened, I thought I’d share it via this post. So, I sent off a paper for publication to one journal which actually suggested another journal because my methodology wasn’t entirely what they were looking for (journal 1 is all about the print culture of American periodicals and my paper was more of a close reading and historical contextualization [of the close reading] of texts published in nineteenth-century American periodicals, and thus not entirely interested in the print medium per se). Anyway, so I got the review back from journal 2 and now I feel like the dumbest piece of crap. Seriously. Granted, I knew I was speaking out of my butt for most of the paper, but I thought because I had luck with a previous paper that the stars would align once again. So, so dreadfully wrong.
The gist of the commentary about my paper was that the reader is suspicious of any “fancy and fashionable” theoretical lens to argue for something that is “essentially “uncontested.” Oh, and I misspelled a proper noun via misplacing the apostrophe in a possessive construction. Whoever wrote the response could have been less of a douche bag (think the ultimate snark-fest in four terse sentences), but I suppose I merely received what was inevitably coming for me.
will y’all permit a late response?:
Ben– bummer!!! I am so proud of your thorough and thoughtful work thus far despite this deeply snarky, and potentially unsettingly, latest experience.
Since coming to Duke there has been a suspicion and discouragement of the “professionalization” of graduate students. It seemed to get people in to graduate school, however, there is growing discontent toward this practice. Many professors encourage: read, read, then read, read, and read more. However, each will admit that attending a conference here and there will not only be advantageous for the resume, but for building rapport, networking, and “seeing fun new places”(thinking here of two rather odd professors). They suggest : one a year, maybe. Aim to publish by your fourth/fifth year, realistically. Go for good journals.
Personally, I just returned from the ISRLC conference. I had the unusual experience of having my director in attendance as she had been invited as one of the four speakers to present (the panel I was on had no direct relation with her invitation nor the acceptance of my paper). It was a huge benefit to have my advisor in attendance for my first paper as you can imagine. I had lovely encouragement and support, but also critical response and discussion once we returned to work. At the conference I felt a bit ill at ease because it was primarily an “interdisciplinary” bent (therefore difficult to find literature leads and people) and I may have been the youngest people in attendance (adding to my nervousness). I felt _very_ inadequate at times. However, I did learn a great deal about the state of some areas of discourse, some things _not_ to do, how to chit-chat, etc. I also had the opportunity to respond to two modernist papers and have the professor of one presenter (a dissertating student in religion) both write me after the conference asking for a more thorough analysis/critique of the paper. In this regard I felt the conference was helpful for helping me learn to navigate “the conference” as a part of our practice. I am now debating whether or not to attend another one in the spring with the hopes that this other conference will provide more networking possibilities and help me actually present on _literature_. (The paper I presented at ISRLC was on Dreyer’s films and Marion’s phenomenological terms of Otherness/gaze therefore part of the film and religion panel; however, the current paper is on Beavuoir, Modernism, and Mysticism/Catholicism.)
All in all I think it’s a good idea to approach the term paper on it’s own terms (tailoring for each professor and the question you’re pursuing–as I have learned), but be able to make sure the quality of the paper can carry over into a conference presentation or potentially into an article. Next semester I hope to enroll in a course “writing for the profession” from K. Psomiades. If I learn any good tips I will be sure to pass them along.